Erak_s ransom ra-7

by John Flanagan

  The shouting echoed off the building fronts, keeping pace with the incessant booming of the drum. Some of the Arridi were caught up in the moment and joined their voices to the chorus. They had seen executions before. They had a good idea what was about to happen. The shouting grew in intensity, volume and urgency.

  Then a massive figure appeared on one side of the square, standing high above the heads of the spectators. For a moment he seemed to be floating in the air, then Halt realised that he was on a large wooden shield, being borne at shoulder height by four Tualaghi as they forced their way through the crowd towards the execution site.

  The drumbeat intensified in pace and the shouting went with it. Hassaun was a massive figure, clad entirely in black. His long, flowing robe billowed on the early morning breeze and the tails of his black kheffiyeh trailed behind him as the four warriors carried him forward. The lower half of his face was covered by the ever-present dark blue Tualaghi veil.

  His hands, crossed in front of his chest, rested on the hilt of a massive, black-bladed, double-handed sword.

  ***

  Will and Aloom had reached the nearer tower as the drumbeat began, deep and sonorous.

  'They're starting!' Aloom cried. 'Get moving! We haven't much time!'

  Will said nothing. He stripped the canvas wrapping from his longbow, bent it behind his right calf, anchoring it in place with his left ankle, and slid the bowstring up into its notch, grunting slightly with the effort of overcoming the bow's fifty-kilogram draw weight.

  He tossed his cloak to one side, revealing the quiver of two dozen arrows over his shoulder, slung the bow alongside it and started to climb up the rotten timber framework of the tower.

  It was slow going. In spite of Aloom's exhortations to hurry, and his own growing sense of urgency, he knew he had to pick his hand and footholds carefully. The tower was in worse condition than he had expected and there was an excellent chance that it might collapse under a hurried movement.

  He'd gone up four metres, past the top of the wall itself, and was stepping carefully to one last crosspiece before he gained the observation platform.

  The drum had ceased for a few minutes but, in the distance, he could hear it booming again, coming faster and faster now. Then a chant from hundreds of voices carried to him:

  Hassaun! Hassaun! Hassaun!

  'Who the blazes is Hassaun?' he muttered to himself, inching carefully along a decidedly untrustworthy timber brace.

  He was poised in midair, his foot reaching out tentatively for the more solid-looking platform, his weight supported by his arms so that he was utterly helpless, when he heard a voice from behind him.

  'Who the hell are you? And what are you up to?'

  He looked down. Aloom was below him, facing back the way they had come. Ten metres away, three Tualaghi warriors watched them suspiciously. Behind them, smiling vindictively, was the fat merchant they had seen in the inn the previous night.

  Chapter 44

  The giant executioner balanced easily on the shield, borne on the shoulders of four Tualaghi warriors as they made their way through the crowded market square towards the execution site. As he passed through the crowd, hands were raised and weapons brandished by the Tualaghi in admiration of the massive figure.

  The four bearers stopped beside the execution platform and Hassaun stepped lightly onto it. As he did so, another bout of cheering rose up.

  Now that he could see him more closely, Halt realised that the executioner really was a giant. He stood well over two metres in height and his shoulders and body were built in the same massive proportion. He whipped the huge, two-handed sword up until it was raised vertically above his head and paraded along the front of the platform, ignoring the line of prisoners and brandishing the sword to the assembled crowd.

  Again the cries of his name echoed out.

  Hassaun! Hassaun! Hassaun!

  He marched along the front of the platform to the far end, then back to the centre again, drinking in the adulation of the crowd. Then, when he stood at the centre, he raised the sword to the fullest stretch of his arms, reversed it with a flick of his powerful wrists and drove it, thudding, point first into the platform.

  He stepped back a pace, leaving the sword slowly quivering as it stuck into the wood.

  Then he reached up to the lacing that secured his outer robe, quickly released it and swung the robe out and away from his body, letting it fall in a heap behind him.

  He was clad now only in a pair of wide, billowing trousers, gathered at the waist and each ankle, and the black kheffiyeh and dark blue face veil of the Tualaghi. His bare torso gleamed slightly with oil and now the hugely muscled arms, chest and abdomen could be seen clearly.

  He stepped forward and, without any apparent effort, flicked the sword free of the wood, then spun it around his body and head in a bewildering series of high-speed arcs and circles. He handled the huge sword as if it were a toy, but to anyone who knew weapons and could estimate the weight of the long, heavy, tapering blade, it was an impressive display that spoke volumes about the strength and co-ordination of arm, body and wrist muscles. The highly polished black blade caught the rays of the morning sun and flashed and dazzled the eye, moving so quickly that at times it seemed more like a solid black disc than a narrow blade.

  Hassaun! Hassaun! Hassaun!

  The cries went up again and this time, more of the Arridi joined in, mesmerised by the strength and power and charisma of the Tualaghi giant. After all, six of the seven captives standing on the platform were foreigners and the Arridi had no cause to mourn their execution. As for the seventh, word had gone around as to Selethen's rank and the people of remote back-country towns like Maashava had little reason to love the Emrikir and the Wakirs who ruled Arrida's provinces under him. As Halt had observed some days earlier, most officials in Arrida were corrupt, and prone to look for bribes when they dealt with the people under them. Selethen was an exception to the general rule but the Maashavites weren't to know that. He governed a distant province so they had no first-hand knowledge of him.

  In addition, normal contact between subjects and rulers came at tax time, when townspeople like those in Maashava were required to hand over a percentage of all they had earned or grown during the year. At such times, the government showed little sympathy for a town that might have been invaded and pillaged by raiding Tualaghi.

  'We starve while they grow fat in Mararoc' was an old back-country saying and the people of Maashava felt there was a lot of basic truth in it. So if a well-paid, well-fed government official were to lose his head, there'd be few here to grieve over the fact. With typical farmers' fatalism, they reasoned there would always be another eager to take his place.

  So now, faced with the savagely compelling prospect of a mass execution performed by an obvious artist like Hassaun, they began to cheer and encourage him to greater feats.

  Hassaun was pleased to oblige. He began dancing from side to side, delivering overhead cuts, side cuts and deep thrusts with the massive sword, letting it flicker and sweep with all the speed of a snake's tongue. Back and forth he went, from left to right, then back to the left again.

  Then he leapt high in the air and delivered a huge, arcing downwards cut with the sword, miming the decapitation of a kneeling victim. The point thudded into the wood planks and again he released it and leapt back, leaving the sword quivering from the force of the blow.

  As quickly, he seized the two-handed grip and jerked it free again, then began knee-walking from side to side, dropping to a knee with each stride, and all the time keeping the sword spinning, flashing and cutting. The chanting of his name intensified, with the cadence of the chant matching the rhythm of his movements.

  From his kneeling position, he leapt high in the air, spinning as he came down to face the line of victims, carving an invisible X in the air with two diagonal sweeps of the sword. Then he spun once more to face the crowd. For all his size and strength he was amazingly light on his feet. He s
ignalled to one of the men who had carried him to the platform and the warrior reached to a nearby market stall and retrieved a melon. He tossed it high into the air above the giant.

  The sword flashed in two opposing diagonal cuts. The first cleaved the melon in two pieces. The second sliced through the larger of the two before the sections of fruit dropped to the platform with a wet thud.

  Unbidden, the soldier now lobbed another melon and this time Hassaun halved it with a horizontal sweep, followed instantly by a vertical cut through one of the pieces.

  The crowd howled its delight.

  Hassaun responded by passing the sword, spinning, from one hand to the other, maintaining the rhythm as he passed it from right to left hand then back again, holding it by the long hilt, close to the crosspiece, controlling it with the strength of his hands and wrists.

  He tossed it, spinning, high into the air, caught it as the hilt came round. Then, leaping high, he spun one hundred and eighty degrees in the air and brought the sword down in a savage splitting stroke at the captive who happened to be facing him.

  By chance, it was Horace.

  The crowd fell suddenly silent as the huge figure leapt, spun and struck. They expected to see the foreigner split from head to shoulders, at least. But at the last moment, with an amazing display of strength and control, Hassaun halted the downward stroke so that the massive blade merely touched Horace's hair.

  The crowd yelled, then fell silent as they realised that the young foreigner hadn't moved, hadn't flinched. He hadn't tried to raise his bound hands in a futile attempt to ward off the terrible blow. He had merely stood, rock steady, watching the executioner with a disdainful look on his face.

  Horace's pulse was racing and adrenaline was surging into his system. But he showed no sign of it. He had somehow realised what was coming as the huge man had leapt and spun before him. The co-ordination of the back stroke with the turn had alerted Horace. Sensing what was about to come, he had determined that he would not move a muscle when the stroke arrived. It took enormous strength of will but he had managed it. Now he smiled.

  Prance and leap all you like, my friend, he thought, I'll show you what a knight of Araluen is made of.

  Hassaun paused. He frowned as he stared at the smiling young man before him. In times past, that movement had invariably resulted in the victim's dropping to the ground, hands above his head, screaming for mercy. This youth was smiling politely at him. Incredibly, he held out his bound hands, palms uppermost.

  'That was really very good,' he said. 'I wonder could I have a go?'

  It was as if he really expected Hassaun to pass him the sword. The executioner took a pace back, bewildered. He felt the situation was moving out of his control. Then matters became worse as the two bearded Skandian ruffians joined in.

  'Nice work, Horace,' Erak said, chuckling delightedly. Svengal echoed the sentiment. 'Well done, boy! That's set Horrible Hassaun back on his haunches!'

  With a scream of rage, Hassaun turned on the two guffawing Skandians. The sword spun over his head then he swung it in a flat, horizontal arc this time, straight at Erak's neck. As with Horace, he halted the blow only millimetres from the Skandian. But, like Horace, Erak showed no sign of flinching.

  Instead, he turned to his cohort and said in an approving tone, 'Nice control, Svengal. The man's got good wrists. I'd like to see him with a battleaxe in his hands.'

  Svengal frowned, not totally agreeing.

  'I'd like to see him with a battleaxe in his head, chief,' he said and they both guffawed again, totally at ease, totally unafraid.

  Now Hassaun sensed a growing impatience and puzzlement in the crowd. The chanting of his name had died down as they showed their respect for the courage of these foreigners. Arrida was a hard land and violent death was a daily occurrence. The Arridi and Tualaghi both admired those who could face it with such aplomb. It was vital, Hassaun knew, that he regain the mob's respect. He paced along the line of captives, looking for the weak link.

  And saw the girl.

  She wouldn't be able to withstand the threat of the huge sword, he reasoned. He could reduce her to a weeping tearful shadow of herself within seconds. And then, he sensed, the other captives would have to lose their disinterested, nonchalant attitude to him as they tried to comfort her.

  He let the rage build up in him like water behind a dam. The he released it with a lingering scream of hate as he leapt for the girl, sword raised. Then the blade was sweeping and cutting across her, beside her, above her head, thudding down into the planking by her feet so that the floor of the platform shook with the force of his blows. He cut the air about her, the sword never more than a few millimetres from her. It was a terrifying, terrible display of rage and strength.

  The girl didn't move.

  Evanlyn stood stock still, knowing she must not move, must not cringe or flinch or blink while the terrifying weapon hissed past, barely a hair's breadth from her face and body. Any one of those blows would cut her in half, she realised. Yet she forced herself to show no fear. Her heart thudded and her pulse raced with it but she hid it deep inside her. She wondered vaguely how Horace had stood up to such an ordeal without fear and then it dawned on her. He hadn't. But he had controlled the fear because that was his way of having revenge on the posturing, leaping, stupid man now in front of her.

  And she determined she would have the same revenge. Logic told her that this display of Hassaun's was all for show. They had stated several times that Halt would be the first to die. Therefore all this slashing and cutting was simply to frighten her. At the same time, she realised, the slightest mistake on Hassaun's part would be fatal. If rage or frustration threw him off balance so that he missed a stroke by as little as half a centimetre, she would be dead.

  But she stood, eyes open but deliberately unfocused as the razor-sharp blade, nearly a metre and a half long, hissed and whooshed around her face and neck and body.

  And finally, it was Hassaun who was defeated. He stepped back, lowering the sword. His body gleamed with perspiration. His eyes above the mask showed his utter bewilderment. And the crowd was silent.

  Then one voice, from somewhere in the middle, called out.

  'Release her!'

  And another joined in, and another. Until a growing section of the crowd were echoing the sentiment. Mostly they were Arridi. But Yusal's eyes narrowed in rage as he saw several of his own men raising their hands and calling for Evanlyn's release.

  Furious, he stepped forward, drawing his own sword to emphasise his words.

  'That's enough!' he shouted. 'Enough!'

  The cries for Evanlyn's release died away as Yusal's bleak eyes swept the crowd. Behind him, Halt realised that this was a moment of maximum danger for Evanlyn.

  Yusal might well choose to make a swift end of her here and now to still the chance of any further protest on her behalf. He would have to take the focus away from her and concentrate Yusal's anger on himself. Forcing a tone of utter boredom and disdain into his voice, he stepped forward, calling loudly to the Tualaghi leader:

  'Yusal, this is getting very boring. Can we get on with it, please?'

  Yusal rounded on him, Evanlyn forgotten. This was the man his soldiers hated, he knew. This was the way to recover control of the situation. Nobody would call for Halt's release. He pointed his sword now at the grey-bearded, shaggy-haired figure.

  'Kill him!' he ordered Hassaun. 'Kill him now!'

  Two of his men dragged Halt to the edge of the platform while a third brought the execution block forward. This was a tapered timber block about a metre high, designed so that a kneeling victim could be forced to lean their upper body against the tapered, sloping edge, thus providing resistance to the blow from the executioner's sword. He placed it in position while Halt was forced to his knees by the other two. They shoved him hard up against the block, looping his bound arms over it to hold him in position. Halt glanced round, saw Gilan's horrified expression. He smiled grimly.

  'Will
's taking his time,' he said. 'I'll give him a piece of my mind over this.'

  'Silence!' screamed Yusal, his voice breaking into a higher pitch with the vehemence of his cry. 'Force him round!' he added in a more controlled voice to one of his men. The Tualaghi grabbed Halt's head in both his hands and turned it so that he was facing forward.

  Halt found himself scanning the faces before him – faces in the crowd. They were silent now and unmoving. But there was no pity evident there – just the morbid fascination of those looking into the eyes of a man who is about to die. Then he stopped at one face that seemed vaguely familiar. The man met his gaze and nodded slowly. Halt racked his brain and realised he had seen the man before – he had been one of the Arridi troopers turned loose by Yusal to die in the desert. He was sure of it!

  There was a vast collective sigh from the crowd as Hassaun stepped forward, advanced his right foot and took the huge sword up and back, high over his right shoulder.

  There was a pause. Then Halt heard a hiss as something passed through the air at great speed. It was vaguely familiar, he thought. In a strangely detached way, he decided it must be the sound of the sword flashing down to end his life.

  He'd often wondered how it would happen and what it would feel like. In less than a second, he thought, he'd know.

  Chapter 45

  Suspicion turned to certainty in the eyes of Talish, the Tualaghi thief, as he glanced up and saw Will hanging from the watchtower framework, his longbow and quiver slung over one shoulder.

  The Tualaghi didn't recognise the young man but he recognised the weapons. He had seen bows like that before, when he and his friends had charged the Arridi camp site.

  'He's one of the foreigners!' he yelled, drawing his sword. 'Get him!'

  His two henchmen moved forward with him, their own swords ringing clear of their scabbards. Aloom stepped clear of the wall, discarding his cloak and drawing his own weapon to bar their way.